Let's learn some about the Bible

Post navigation

Choosing to start part 2

While I am not looking to publish this blog everyday i would like to finish my previous thought. As I stated yesterday there were two things that really got my attention in Ecclesiastes1:17 the first being the words madness and folly. The other thing that caught my eye in v17, was the word “wisdom”. Which according to the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Definitions or BDB there are five categories of wisdom meant here. Each one deals with a different aspect of life. And I would like to look at them here. Because if we are going to make a proper choice we need to know what we are choosing.

1. This word wisdom is first talking about skill in war or what we would think of as a tactician. The one who plans the battle. Most of us are not in the military. However if you are alive and breathing than you are in a spiritual fight. Satan has been at odds with God almighty since he fell. Back in the Garden of Eden he attacked by God by getting mankind to fall as well. That opened the floodgates for a whole bunch of new recruits (sinners) for Satan. Because of Adam’s sin we are all born sinners, Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”. Once you accept Jesus as your savior the war doesn’t end you simply switch sides. The best way to plan your day is to start off with prayer and reading the Bible. Again a choice that we have to make on an individual basis.

2. Wisdom is proper administration. So now we are talking about: government, leadership at work and even how to properly run your home. Yes we can insert the joke here about our government needing more wisdom or our local sports team needing more than just warm bodies to run the front office. All jokes aside that is it completely. Too many people refusing to compromise and demanding it be done their way. Far too often money doing the talking instead of just being the tool to get the job done. That must be why Jesus told us to pray about everything. As he put it in Matthew 7:7 “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you”. What is the wisdom in that? Jesus is giving each of us, both as individuals and and groups, to always be seeking Him and His wisdom. Each would be a very good decision for each of us to go back to doing that about everything we do.

3. This wisdom is also shrewdness. Whenever I hear or read that word ‘shrewd’ I think of money and business. There are deals to be made where everybody makes out. And the little guy doesn’t have to be crushed to earn a buck either. The Bible has a great deal to say about money; including over in 1 Timothy 6:10 where we are told “For the love of money is the root of all evil”. It is not money itself but the greed, the overwhelming desire, the desperate need to get as much money at any cost as possible that is the problem described in that verse.

We are to be good caretakers of our money. There is nothing wrong with having money or saving it for retirement. At the same time that we are showing resolve to be wise in our financial choices we are setting prime examples for our kids, friends, and others around us on how to properly handle money or how to be wise concerning money. It is a choice but a good one.

4. Also this word for wisdom includes the idea of prudence in religion. I know, never talk about politics or religion, because it can start a fight. Too late, lol! Truth be told if we did a better job at both there would be little to fight about when discussed. Our nation was founded on Christian principles, God, and the Bible.

Due to poor choices in this area of wisdom our nation is quickly floundering. We have gotten away from God. More and more churches are turning to serving the desires of the people instead of following God. We are having fewer church services because we don’t need to go to church again, we were just there the other week. More people become atheists because in our wisdom we have abandoned God and His wisdom and thereby given them no reason to believe.

I am reminded of the books of Ezra and Haggai, the center of those books being the need to rebuild the temple. The whole point of having the Israelites rebuild it was to create a physical rallying point for the nation; to help them focus on God. Instead they were more concerned with themselves. Religion didn’t matter enough to them so they had stopped the reconstruction process. Removing this form of wisdom was a poor decision that was costing them dearly.

If this one nation under God is to ever get straightened out it will take a concerted effort on the part of the individuals to choose wisely in their religious freedom.

And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” The psalmist could ask this of God because he had devoted himself to knowing God’s wisdom, he was on the right track. He wasn’t daring God on anything he was just making sure. You see he had already been making the effort to confess his sins and avoid getting into sin. He knew he doing good but still a sinner. And because he was still he a sinner he needed to know if there was anything that stood between him and God. If so he wanted rid of it right away. This man was not looking to hold onto any sin. Often though that is what we do. We confess our sin knowing when presented with that temptation again we will give in. We can be delivered from it but we must trust God and give ourselves over to knowing His wisdom. The same wisdom Solomon had originally sought out in his youth before he gave himself over to knowing madness and folly.